We Only Just Begun

What About Asian Africans?

Afro-Asian, refers to a person of mixed Black and Asian (specifically East or Southeast Asian) ancestry.The term also can refer to modern descendants of aboriginal, mostly uncontacted, Asian ethnic groups with direct genetic ties to ancient first-wave migrants coming out of continental African. Historically, Afro-Asian populations have been marginalized as a result of human migration and social conflict. Much has not changed for many within the global, present-day, Afro-Asian population.

1. Democratic Republic of the Congo

Katanga Afro-Japanese
During the 1970s, an increased demand for copper and cobalt attracted Japanese investments in the mineral-rich southeastern region of Katanga Province. Over a 10-year period, more than 1,000 Japanese miners relocated to the region, confined to a strictly male-only camp. Arriving without family or spouses, the men often sought social interaction outside the confounds of their camps. In search of intimacy with the opposite sex, sometimes resulting in cohabitation, the men openly engaged in interracial dating and relationships, a practice mostly embraced by the local society. As a result, a number of Japanese miners fathered children with native Congolese women. However, most of the mixed race infants resulting from these unions died, soon after birth. Multiple testimonies of local people suggest that the infants were poisoned by a Japanese lead physician and nurse working at the local mining hospitale. Subsequently, the circumstances would have brought the miners shame as most of them already had families back in their native Japan. The practice forced many native Katangan mothers to hide their children by not reporting to the hospital to give birth. Other women raised their child more rural or remote areas as blasian children were sought after and murdered in the city by Japanese officials.

Today, fifty Afro-Japanese have formed an association of Katanga Infanticide survivors. The organization has hired legal council seeking a formal investigation into the killings. The group submitted official inquiry to both the Congolese and Japanese governments, to no avail. Issues specific to this group include having no documentation of their births, since not having been born in the local hospital spared their lives. The total number of survivors is unknown.

2. Equatorial Guinea

The mid-19th century saw about 500 Chinese laborers and indentured servants, along with a handful from India stealthily imported to the island of Fernando Po through the once Portuguese occupied Macau. While most of these servants returned to their homelands at the end of their servitude, a few remained, settling and marrying into the local population. One example is immigrant East Indian laborer Franciso Kashu who remained in Moka after the death of his last living relative. He married the daughter of one of the last Bubi kings, producing several Equatoguinean-Indian children.

3. Kenya

Zheng He’s fleet
In 1999, Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times reported a surprising encounter on the island of Pate, where he found a village of stone huts. He talked to an elderly man living in the village who said that he was a descendant of Chinese explorers who were shipwrecked there centuries before. The Chinese had supposedly traded with the locals, and had even loaded giraffes onto their ship to take back to China. However, the Chinese ran aground on a nearby reef. Kristof found evidence that confirmed the man’s story. Such evidence included the Asian features of the people in the village, plus Asian-looking porcelain artifacts. These descendents of Zheng He’s fleet occupy both Pate and Lamu Islands.

New immigration
New interest in Kenya’s natural resources has attracted over $1 billion of investment from Chinese firms. This has propelled new development in Kenya’s infastruction with Chinese firms bringing in their own males workers to build roads. The temporary residents usually arrive without their spouses and families. Thus, a rise of incidents involving local college-aged females has resulted in an increased rate of Afro-Chinese infant births to single Kenyan mothers.

4. Madagascar

The population of Madagascar is primarily a mixture of various degrees of Austronesian and Bantu settlers from Southeast Asia (Borneo) and East Africa (primarily Mozambique), respectively. Years of intermarriages created the Malagasy people, who primarily speak Malagasy, an Austronesian language with Bantu influences.

All Madagascan living groups show a mixture of uniparental lineages typical of present African and South East Asian populations.In the study of “The Dual Origin of the Malagasy in Island Southeast Asia and East Africa: Evidence from Maternal and Paternal Lineages” shows the Bantu Maternal origin to be 38% and Paternal 51% while the Asian Paternal to be 34% and Maternal 62%. In the study of Malagasy Autosomal DNA shows the highlanders ethnic group like Merina are almost an even mixture of Asian and Bantu origin, while the Coastal ethnic group have much higher Bantu mixture in their autosomal DNA suggesting they are mixture of new Bantu migrants and the already established highlander ethnic group. Maximum-likelihood estimates favour a scenario in which Madagascar was settled approximately 1200 years ago by a very small group of women of approximately 30.

Intermarriage between Chinese men and native Malagasy women was not uncommon. Several thousands Cantonese men intermarried and cohabited with Malagasy women. 98% of the Chinese traced their origin from Guangdong more specifically Cantonese district of Shunde. For example the census alone in 1954 census found 1, 111 “irregular” Chinese-Malagasy unions, and 125 legitimate, i.e., legally married. Registered by their mothers under a Malagasy name.

5. Nigeria

Since the 1970s, Nigeria has seen a slow, but steady, increase in the immigrant Filipino population drawn by the oil industry. Established in 1973, the Philippine Barangay Society of Nigeria addresses issues specific to over 1700 Nigerized Filipinos living in the country. This acculturation has resulted in a small, but growing, number of biracial Nigerian-Filipinos births. Most of these children are parented by Filipino mothers and Nigerian fathers.

6. Réunion

The native Kaf population has a diverse range of ancestry stemming from colonial Chinese and Indian peoples. They also descent from African slaves brought to the island from countries like Mozambique, Guinea, Senegal, Madagascar, Tanzania and Zambia.

7. Seychelles

More than 70% of native population has Afro-Asian ancestry stemming from African, Malagasy, Indian and Chinese peoples, combined with additional French and British origins. However, the demographic is specifically proud of their African/Malagasy heritage and have formed an institute promoting their identity and cultural tolerance.

8. South Africa

The Cape Coloured population descend from indigenous Khoisan and Xhosa peoples, European immigrants, and Malagasy, Ceylonese and South-East Asian (primarily Indonesian) laborers and slaves brought by the Dutch from the mid-17th Century to the late 18th Century. The majority of Coloureds, particularly in the Western Cape and Northern Cape, speak Afrikaans as a first language, while those in other parts of South Africa tend to speak English as well. Coloureds with Javanese or other Indonesian ancestry may often be regarded as Cape Malay and are primarily Muslims, while the majority of Coloureds are Christian (generally Protestant) or agnostic.
Due to similar social adversities experienced under the Apartheid regime from the late 1940s to the late 1980s, Coloured and Indigenous South African communities generally fall under the Black social category when it comes to employment and affirmative action policies.

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5 comments on “What About Asian Africans?”

Another eyeopener. Methinks I’ll fly to Hell-Land and give you a big hug.

Even though it hurts my heart to see Black women with any man outside of Black ones, at least they weren’t white. However, I have been to Japan, and those people are more racist then any stomp down Georgia [“creepy cracka”] I have ever run into.

This leads to me wonder if this same thing is happening now with all them Chinese running around on the continent?

Much appreciated. As much as I almost cracked up, I have to change your comment to “creepy cracka” otherwise it might be used to accuse you of a hate crime.
I am not yet sure what the problem is with Mongolians. Did you already post on Japan? Peace.